1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to automated aseptic liquid collection workstations. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to workstations for use in the automated collection of liquids during processing, as well as to collection devices used with such automated workstations.
2. Description of Related Art
The processing of many liquid products can be performed in a sterile environment and/or an aseptic environment to protect the product and/or the manufacturing personnel from contamination. Such liquid products can include, but are not limited to, pharmaceutical products (e.g., medicines and vaccines), food products, biological products, biochemical products, chemical products, and any combinations thereof.
It is known to collect liquid during the processing. The liquid collected can be used to sample or test the liquid product before, during, and after certain processing steps to ensure that the resultant product meets various acceptance criteria. Also, the collected liquid can be a finished product such as, but not limited to a collected centrifuged fraction or can be a finished product pre-cursor. Moreover, the collected liquid can be collect in any desired volume.
In some instances, the liquid collection can be performed during or after certain process steps and/or at certain time intervals. In other instances, the collection can be performed after the product has been made, but before the production batch is released for use by consumers.
Importantly, the collection of liquid from the processing line is a critical activity and creates a potential risk of contaminating the product and/or the sample. Unfortunately, the risk of contamination often leads manufacturers to limit the number of times liquids are collected and/or to limit the number of locations where such liquids are collected.
In addition, when collecting product testing samples, contamination of the sample may cause a false result, which can lead to the unneeded destruction of a product batch and/or unneeded delay in the continuation of the production process until the cause of the contamination is determined. Further, the need to clean and sterilize the sample path before and/or after each batch typically requires the sampling devices to be hard piped into a specific location in the production line, which can limit the flexibility of the processing line to process other products in a timely and efficient manner.
Further, the containers of collected liquids must be properly identified by the operator and this identifying information must then subsequently be input by the department responsible for testing the sample or releasing the finished product. The manual identification of collected liquid containers and the manual input of this identity have proven to be error prone, which can further complicate the proper testing and release of product.
Accordingly, it has been determined by the present disclosure that there is a need for workstations that can overcome, alleviate, and/or mitigate one or more of the aforementioned and/or other deleterious effects of the prior art. For example, it has been determined by the present disclosure that there is a need for workstations that automate the collection of liquid products, while ensuring integrity and eliminating the risk of contamination, and minimizing errors related to manual input of data related to the collected liquid.